A pistol-packing Brooklyn pimp was sentenced to 21 years in prison for the sadistic sex trafficking of teenage girls held captive in his basement apartment.
Deranged defendant Joseph Harris, 41, was arrested in May 2018 for brutalizing and threatening the victims while forcing them to engage in sex acts for his profit across 10 terrifying months, officials said Friday.
The violent pimp, known by the nickname “Luis Santana,” menaced one victim at gunpoint before posting a photo of the incident on Instagram, and dragged another across a floor soaked with bleach in a dispute over cash.
Harris also had sex with girls as young as 14 while holding them inside the residence on St. Mark’s Place in Prospect Heights beginning in July 2017 and continuing until his arrest, officials said.
The defendant fed the trapped women with a variety of drugs, including ecstasy, cocaine, marijuana and pills, officials said, and forced them to have regular sex with him when not working.
The operation was exposed after authorities received 911 calls reporting young girls kept in the apartment, with police arriving to find two adult victims along with a 16-year-old girl. A birth certificate for a 17-year-old female and hotel receipts were found in the residence by authorities.
The defendant advertised the availability of his victims through social media and the internet, authorities said.
The investigation found Harris forced the women to turn over all the money collected from their clients, and routinely punished those who tried to keep any cash for themselves. Police also recovered a loaded semi-automatic weapon from his apartment.
Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Breon Peace announced the sentencing along with New York FBI head Michael Driscoll and NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell, with the Kings County district attorney’s office thanked for their assistance.
At the time of Harris’ arrest, then-NYPD head James O’Neill denounced the crimes as “among the most heinous in our society.”